I now have a full time job plus a long commute, which means… more time for reading manga while half-asleep? Huh?

Anyway the last thread of this kind was in July, and since then an anime season has finished, so might as well do it again.

For me:

Manga:

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (2005): Parallel to watching the excellent adaptation, I have picked up the manga and, much like Kaiji, finished it in a concerningly short time. Koji Kumeta has a bone to pick with the world… with everything in the world. What arises is a very entertaining ruthless critique. I’m fairly sure he’s either still a leftist, or used to be one and got disappointed. However, he is also nationalistic. A political mess, mostly agreeable, sometimes dropping horrible takes - but a fantastic manga which never loses its bite no matter how many chapters you are into it. It’s also less horny than the Shaft adaptation. A+

√Paradise (1991): Being curious about Kumeta’s early work, I read this short manga of his, which is basically the Yakuza games’ cabaret club side-plot in manga form. Not too interesting, but a decent enough read. B-

Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san (2017): Nagatoro is a decent romance manga with a pretty bad beginning. It ended a few months ago, but I have caught up only recently. Not much else to say, really. B

Shiroyama to Mita-san (2021): Nice comedic romance/slice of life manga about two (mostly) uncool people. Fun, but have not finished it yet. B+

Anime:

Aa-Megami Sama (2005): I had read a large chunk of the manga before, and it’s just as fun as I remembered it being. The romance stuff isn’t too strong, but the hijinks are fun. The source material being from the 80s means that many of the usual tropes didn’t exist yet… or were being invented. A-

Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Almost done with this show, it’s been really good overall. Strong characters and storytelling, and the anime original plot… I can clearly see why it’s controversial, but I like it. Good show. A

Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines! (2024): The only seasonal I didn’t drop. Story-wise very conventional, but the character writing was good. Anna Yanami in particular, being one of the strongest female leads in recent anime history. It had a few tone-unfitting scenes that felt tacked on for the horny audience, but overall decent show. B

Western Animation

The Owl House (2020): Very fun show, with some blatant inspiration from many recognizable source materials, western and Japanese. King is a king. A

  • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    6·
    3 months ago

    Anime

    • Ghost in the Shell SAC S2 This shit sucks and I’ve totally stalled on it for months with like 10 eps left due to the non-stop copaganda (does it even count as copaganda if they’re mercenaries?). I WILL finish it eventually. Apparently everyone says S1 is better but I think they’re roughly comparable which is to say equally bad. Perhaps this is a thing of it being the first in the genre which means that I’ve seen other media that more thoroughly explored the ideas, but honestly none of this seems groundbreaking.
    • The Girl Who Leapt Through Time A clear case of working backwards from a cool concept resulting in a weak story. Imo the first half of “fuckin’ around with time travel” is fun but the back half of drama/romance is boring.
    • Castle in the Sky It’s fine. A kids movie that’s pretty solid. Watching it the main thing I noticed was just how different the types of conflict and sense of adventure were from most modern stuff I watch. I wish that they gave an example of… who the CIA wanted to actually go to war with? Perhaps that’s the point, that geopolitics is so removed from the average person’s life that they aren’t even aware of it, but I definitely lean more towards a “this is for kids” explanation.
    • Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction About 2/3 through, pretty solid but weird. Very anti-american, which you love to see, and also critical of japanese nationalism. The art style is very different from typical cutesy anime characters, with all of the main girls being disproportioned blobs. Probably helps stuff like the student-teacher “romance” come off less creepy. Oran needs to read theory.
    • Oshi no Ko The only seasonal I’m watching, a solid season that’s very character-driven with not much happening with the main plot. Last episode in 2 days I think, and I’m looking forward to it. Ruby needs to learn basic math.

    Manga

    • Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint The sloppiest of korean slop. What if the superpower of the main character was that he read too many webnovels? There’re some fun character intereaction bits, but the action scenes are mostly unreadable garbage, and as seems to be the way in this subgenre of power fantasy, at some point the power-scaling gets so out there that the numbers cease to mean anything.
    • Chainsaw Man and One Piece Still keeping up. CSM continues to be good.
      • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Depends what you’re looking for.

        • For cyberpunk action, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is the obvious recommendation. Akudama Drive might also fit the bill, or Vivy: Fluorite Eyes’ Song (I wasn’t a huge fan it but the central premise is “legally distinct Hatsune Miku must time travel to stop the robot apocalypse”).
        • For something with thoughtful politics, sadly I don’t think I’ve ever watched an anime that I’d say is actually good on this front. The best is probably Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but that’s a very different genre. Planetes, maybe; it’s also technically sci-fi but it’s very grounded and a totally different genre. Both of these are unfortunately still Weird About Women (but so is every anime so…).

        I get the feeling that a lot of philosophical musings don’t translate well because I can’t recall an anime that made me really think but that could just be me.

        • notthenameiwant [he/him]@hexbear.netMEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          I was never really a big fan of GITS for its action sequences, but they are a nice touch. I think you’re right in your second point. The only anime that comes to mind in that milieu would be Kaiba (Kino’s Journey too, but that’s a totally different premise).